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7.23.16 – (All Aboard the) Insomniac Express

At the moment of this typing, it is 6:47 am. I crashed around 2:30 am. This is not good.

But it has been a problem for me my whole life. No matter how late I stay up, the exhaustion can never beat my internal alarm clock. Fuck you, body.

Anyways, since I’m up. Let’s talk.

I’m sitting here in a beautiful backyard in Sonoma county for my mom’s birthday weekend. It’s not yet warm enough to dive into the pool and shake the rest of the remaining cobwebs from my brain, but it’s still nice enough to sit outside across from it.

Really, when you break it all down, this moment is what I want my life to be: nights of heavy drinking punctuated by mornings of productivity and creativity, the written word on the page, and nothing else. No real job, no real responsibilities. And of course, who doesn’t want that? But, like, I really want that.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want to be a bum. I want a job, I just want the majority of that job’s work to occur inside my brain and spill out onto paper or a screen. Cormac McCarthy said he only ever wanted to be a writer because he didn’t want to work. The day he was to be evicted from his home (for being a bum) a letter came – someone had bought his book and he was now rich. That’s what I’m talkin’ about.

Of course writing can feel like work, and often it does. But when it flows… Man, there’s nothing quite like it. I’d put it up there with playing a live show and sex. I don’t know which takes first or second, but writing definitely takes third (sorry, Writing).

But it’s true, no matter how great of a run you might be on, sitting at your typer can not compare to the adrenaline of playing music in front of a crowd. Sex is the only thing that comes close, and the two aren’t at all comparable (except maybe for the fact that you’re putting yourself out there in a vulnerable position, but that’s a stretch).

So what the hell am I talking about? I don’t know. I’m running off not-quite-four hours of sleep, I’ve got a belly full of Laguanitas and Dos XX’s, and I know there’s no returning to bed for me. My entire family’s asleep in this beautiful Sonoma getaway, and I currently have no access to the internet to check on the progress of Comic-Con. It’s all quite unfortunate. But also, entirely perfect.